Parasitizing Trademarks of Drugs in China Breeds Resistant Malaria Parasite

World Health Organisation (WHO) officials say that counterfeit drugs and poor storage are endangering the health of millions of people in Asia.

Ron Corben wrote for Voice Of Amercia the article WTO Fears Growing Malaria Drug Resistance May Be Spreading (November 28, 2010): "In recent years, authorities cracked down against illegal factories in China. Meanwhile counterfeit producers have been found elsewhere, including Cambodia and Burma."

Simeon Bennett wrote for Asia Health Space the article Malaria Redux And Counterfeit Drugs (April 2, 2010): "In Pailin [Cambodia], a flood of counterfeit pills from China and elsewhere is helping to breed a superbug that resist even the most-effective medicine." Read .

This problem is recurring for years now:

2009: See Simeon Bennett's 2009 Bloomberg article Fake Malaria Drugs Spread, Breed Resistance to Lethal Parasite.

2008: ScienceDaily article 'Fake Malaria Drugs Made In China: Tracking Down The Threat To Global Health'.

2007: Jill McGivering's 2007 BBC News article 'Tracking the fake malaria drug threat'.

Eye for an eye

What is a fitting punishment for these counterfeiters? Denying them help when they would contract Malaria? But even if you would impose the biblical sanction of an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, how can you sanction someone that contributes to the death of not one but thousands of people who contracted Malaria and use counterfeit drugs that do not cure them?

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Origin Fake Malaria Medicine Traced By Scientific Effort

Every year about 500 million people become ill of malaria. Every year 1 million people die, because of one version of malaria called Plasmodium falciparum. One major problem is that not all malaria medicines are genuine and some have only a low dose of the active ingredient, so that the malaria parasite becomes resistent. Jeremy Laurance of The Independent wrote the article entitled 'Scientists trace fake anti-malaria pills to dealer in southern China', read here.

The Public Library of Science (PLoS) Medicine gives the full report about this extraordinary scientific effort:

"Since 1998 the serious public health problem in South East Asia of counterfeit artesunate, containing no or subtherapeutic amounts of the active antimalarial ingredient, has led to deaths from untreated malaria, reduced confidence in this vital drug, large economic losses for the legitimate manufacturers, and concerns that artemisinin resistance might be engendered."
The methods were taking samples, assessing physical appearance, chemical and biological investigations and intelligence.

"The results were crucial in helping the authorities establish the origin of the fake artesunate. For example, the authors identified two regional clusters where the counterfeit tablets appeared to be coming from, thus flagging a potential manufacturing site or distribution network. The presence of wrong active pharmaceutical ingredients (such as the older antimalarial drugs) suggested the counterfeiters had access to a variety of active pharmaceutical ingredients. The presence of safrole, a precursor to the illicit drug ecstasy, suggested the counterfeits may be coming from factories that manufacture ecstasy. And the identification of minerals indigenous to certain regions also helped identify the counterfeits' origin. The researchers concluded that at least some of the counterfeit artesunate was coming from southern China. The Secretary General of INTERPOL presented the findings to the Chinese government, which then carried out a criminal investigation and arrested individuals alleged to have produced and distributed the counterfeit artesunate."

Read about this impressive WHO-Interpol project here.

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